HOSA-e-magazine Winter 2018

In 2015, Queen Creek Middle School was officially the first middle school HOSA chapter in Arizona and I was one of the founding members of the chapter.

The first year we partnered with Queen Creek High School to help us run meetings and get ready for competitions against Newell Barney and most people got to qualify and go to the International Leadership Conference. Our first FLEX conference was quite scary. We were a small group of sixth- graders surrounded by very intimidating high schoolers. Everybody kept calling us cute or saying things such as “ Oh I remember when I was a sixth grader! ”. Some of us were complimented and told that we must be very mature to “have our life together” and “That’s great you know what you want to do!” By seventh grade, though, most of the high-schoolers were used to us being around. In 2016, the FLEX conference was about the same, but we knew how to manage our time, sign in, select workshops we liked, and get to where we needed. At the state competition this year, there were more middle schools which meant more competition. Five (5) members placed 1 st and one member placed 2 nd , 3 rd , and 4 th . Internationals was very fun,

and everybody placed in the top ten. Our advisors, school, parents, and other chapter members were proud of those that placed. This is our third year as a chapter, and we are looking to continue another successful year. We have twenty (20) members who are dedicated to the chapter. We hold two meetings a month, one for business and one for guest speakers. We have already had a former EMT, a physiatrist and a firemen/paramedic come speak at one of the meetings. We plan on doing more mentoring with the Queen Creek High School and assist them in blood drives and health education. We have a few fundraisers planned to help our members attend the International Leadership Conference this year in Dallas, Texas. This will be the founding members of Queen Creek Middle School HOSA’s last year in middle school HOSA, and it has been a blast. The experience has been amazing! We have learned so much and hope the other members continue with this organization with the same pride and success with which it started!